Discord introduces video chat and screen sharing

Katharine Byrne . PC . 11th August 2017

Video chat and screen sharing are coming to chat platform Discord, the company has announced. Both features have been in hot demand from the Discord community and the idea is to build stronger connections between its nearly 50m users.

Rolling out today to a select group of users and the rest of the community over the coming months, video chat users will be able to talk with up to six friends at once without interrupting gameplay. The screen share feature, meanwhile, lets a group of up to ten users get involved in a single gameplay stream.

A wider roll-out is still over a month away, Discord said on its blog, as it needs to measure and test bandwidth, acquire and implement more backend servers and fix any errant bugs in the system.

For now, video chat and screen share are only available in one-on-one calls and group DMs, as opposed to servers. This allows up to ten people to use this feature at once, although Discord notes users may experience a reduction in quality after five people are added to the call.

Three views are available, including full screen and a bonus picture in picture mode. The latter comes into play whenever you click away from a group DM during a video call. Here, the main feed will hover in Discord so you can view the call while roaming through different servers and other DMs. You'll also be able to dock the picture in picture window in any corner of the app.

"Video chat and screen share have been two of the most requested features by Discord users so we made developing each a top priority," the company said in a statement. "We take pride in listening to our community and in incorporating their feedback to add the features gamers want and need on the platform for a truly immersive gaming experience."